Leaving
by ShadowPlain
Summary: Just another short angsty oneshot thing, set when Vince and Howard were still st school, and Vince has to leave : Not the most imaginatvie summary really, but please review :


**Why yes, I am still alive and writing angst (I'm stuck in a rut, gahh). But anyway, this is just something quick that I jotted down in my notebook whilst in Starbucks (try their vanilla lattes, oh my god, try them!) and it eventually morphed into this. I'm still not sure what I think of it, but ehh, should be okay. With any luck. **

**Deds' to Corrine and Jamie because you're both amazing and I'd be lost without you 3**

Vince isn't crying, definitely not. Its just that its so cold outside and he's had to sneak out and there's water running down his cheeks because he keeps yawning, yeah. That's it. Its got nothing to do with the fact that he's leaving tomorrow (_another town another school another life) _and his- his..best friend has come to meet him, even after the letter that he sent because he was so _afraid _of actually saying it and making it real.

A little part of his mind is blindly optimistic, saying that at lease they had that summer together, as bestfriendsinlove (not boyfriends or _lovers_ because classification is _so_ last year), and plays images on a loop through his head of going to sleep curled around someone else and one of them rolling onto the camp bed all of two minutes before a parent came to wake them up, so's not to arouse suspicion.

He knows he's not the most articulate person writing wise, but surely it counted for something, right?

Apparently not.

Another four minutes elapse, not that he's counting the little silver hand on the watch – the expensive one that his parents had said was far too expensive for a seventeen year old to own. Course not. Any second now, he's going to get up and go home. Snatch a few hours sleep and wake up just in time to help load the removals van. It will be okay. It _has_ to be, especially when he's been preparing for this moment for months, the moment of cold lucidity amongst all the love lust when Howard realises that he could do better than someone so shallow and looks obsessed and seemingly so self absorbed.

Its not even his fault – he tried to explain how he feels so imperfect and that sometimes putting on a fake ego is the only option, especially at school, and the only way to feel just a bit less self conscious really _is_ to go out and get rat arsed and end up passed out on a barstool – or at least before Howard it was.

Another sigh and sniffle as the spool of film on a loop in his head judders to a halt and makes the backs of Vince's eyelids burn with the imagery of a few weeks ago.

_Howard eventually stirs after Vince has been awake for 1 hour, 3 minutes and 43 seconds, not that he's counting or anything, rather basking in the warmth and the pale, gauzy light filtering thorough the curtains, softening the edge on everything it touches. Vince is sort-of half laid on top of him, head pressed to his bare chest, not really listening to the thrum of his heartbeat, but just aware of it in a background-static kinda way. _

_The ashtray (Vince's) on the bedside table is overflowing onto a Music Studies Level Three workbook (Howard's) and their clothes so easily shed the night before are cloyed together in a mound of creases that looks like it'll be difficult to entangle. _

_Its not such priority though, especially when Howard's tilting his chin up a fraction for a long, sliding kiss that leaves both their lips red as their fingers intertwine-_

Just as quickly as it came, the little scenario is gone in a flash, and Vince gets up, brushing down his jeans and wiping his eyes on the back of his jacket, seen as it doesn't matter that his makeup's ruined now.

Its fine, really, honestly it is. He's should have know that clever, bright types don't settle down with magpies like himself (always stealing other peoples shiny words, faking intellect) and that's okay. Its his fault anyway, stupidly expecting too much, stupidly expecting the hushed _iloveyous_ to mean anything other than the key to an easy fuck.

At the end of the day, none of it matters anyway – teenagers with broken hearts are so cliché and vogue he should fit right back in at the new school.

___

Back at home, the letter shower under the bedroom door sits abandoned, having drifted behind the CD tower to gather dust.

**A/N; So anyway, I haven't written anything since July last year and as a result, this is probably utter rubbish. But whatever, I got rid of writers block, yay! **

**Please review!**

**xx**


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